Page 139 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

Despite the fact that the Hawaiian Islands were once very nearly part of the
British Empire (the islands accepted the British dominium, such as it was) but
only formally accepted close friendship and the Union Jack. Additionally, Captain
Cook, the most famed of British explorer-mariners. and George Vancouver, one
of Cook’s crew members, endeavoured to bring peace to the islands’ warring
inhabitants, but which efforts resulted only in the death of Cook. These facts,
plus the sheer distance from the UK, made Hawaii a virtually unknown quantity
to the British.

I looked forward to arrival in Honolulu, therefore, with pleasurable
anticipation. But there was little to excite the senses. The town around the terminal
was surprisingly tawdry, there was little to buy other than trinkets of little value,
and although I caught sight of Waikiki beach, it did not seem to me to be of any
particular merit. It did have the weather, though, for the warm temperature was
leavened by pleasant breezes. Despite its fame or notoriety, whichever one prefers,
I did not much care if I were to visit again. Particularly irksome was local radio;
there was little enough news and music available aboard at the best of times, but
the poverty of the US stations was particularly apparent if compared with the
ABC and NZBC just left behind. I reflected that the US stations, motivated by the
profit motive, tried to please everybody but pleased nobody.

The trip to Vancouver, the single longest stretch of ocean travel in the voyage,
began a bit more pleasantly, as I discovered a very amiable young lady whom I
had not previously noted. However, for some reason she found me not quite so
charming, so I arrived in Vancouver alone and unloved. Poetic justice, I suppose.

The West Coast of North America offered interesting ports and much activity.
Firstly, we were to visit Vancouver and Seattle, the latter for the first time. To enter
these two ports requires a longer pilotage than I had experienced anywhere, far
longer than Budge Budge and half again as long as the Suez Canal. Upon entering
the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the passage goes on for several hours, one turns to
port, and several hours later reaches Vancouver; if one goes on for an hour or so
from that turning point, one turns to starboard and eventually reaches Seattle.
To say that these are two of the best protected harbours in the world is to state
the obvious. But the pleasures of the USA were to be ennobled from there by our
visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles, a section of the voyage which I thought
potentially its most interesting.

But first to Vancouver, a port entered through a narrow headland gap, topped
by the impressive Lions Gate Bridge, under which the mast just managed to slide.
The harbour itself was long and wide and overhung by mountains to the north and
to the west a valley of narrowing width that eventually took one to the Rockies.
It was a scenic harbour, really second to none; I have to put it on a par with Cape
Town and Sydney. Our berth was something of a letdown, being an elderly cargo

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